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Final Cut Pro 6 Workshop http://www.cla.purdue.edu/vpa/etb/ Fabian Winkler Required software/supplies for this workshop: Description

Apple Final Cut Pro http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/

External hard drive, preferably FireWire www.lacie.com

Digital video recorded onto Mini DV tape

Mini-DV playback device (either camera or mini-DV deck connected to computer via FireWire cable)

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Final Cut Pro 6 Workshop

Final Cut Pro (FCP) is a powerful software package that allows the non-linear editing of digital video. Non-linear editing refers to a process of assembling your final video in which you can combine clips without following a linear order. This technique is quite different from traditional analog video editing in which the sequence of clips couldn’t be changed easily without starting from the beginning again.

For all question related to Final Cut Pro that we cannot address in class please consult the excellent FCP help:

Help > Final Cut Pro User Manual…

In the following pages I introduce techniques for working with SD AND HD video. Some of the numbered steps below are the same for SD and HD but some require different settings. whenever this is the case I indicate the individual steps with “SD” and “HD” for each video format.

Starting a new project

1. Create a new folder – either in your home directory or desktop if you have a USB external hard drive. Or directly on your Firewire hard drive (preferred).

2. Open up Final Cut Pro. When you open the application for the first time you will see a window similar to this:

SD: Make sure to choose Format: NTSC, Rate: 29.97fps and Use: DV-NTSC. Don’t worry about the Primary Scratch Disk. We will set it manually in the next step.

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HD: When you use the Canon VIXIA HF S100 the setup of your project depends on the recording setting you chose in the camera. Assuming you set the camera to the highest possible quality (1080i60) the settings for Final Cut would be:

Format : HD Use: HDV – Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i60 3. Final Cut Pro opens. The first thing you should do is to save this project (even though there is nothing in it yet). This will facilitate finding files later and it also enables the FCP auto-save feature.

File > Save Project As…

Make sure to save the project in the folder that you created previously.

4. Setting the Scratch Disks (this is where FCP will store your digitized files)

Final Cut Pro > System Settings…

You will get a window like this:

Press the Set… Button in the first row and make sure that you choose the same folder in which you also saved your project previously (this will ensure that you keep all your files – project files and linked media files together).

5. The final Cut Pro User interface is comprised of a combination of different windows. Here is what they are good for (see also screenshot on the following page:

(1) Browser: this is where all your media files (sounds, still images and digitized videos) will go. You can further organize them in the Browser by creating “bins” which act as

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folders for materials that belong together. Bins do not server a technical purpose. They are just tools to keep your files organized. The Browser also gives you access to video and audio effects some of which we will take a look at later.

(2) Viewer: if you double-click on a digitized video in the Browser it will open in the Viewer window, so that you can preview it. Use the controls at the bottom of the window for playback.

(3) Timeline: when you create a video in FCP you assemble it in the timeline, which allows you to arrange your clips in time, one after another. Just drag a clip from the Viewer window in the Timeline. The transition from one clip to another is called “edit” or “cut” – we will talk more about editing techniques in the following workshop.

(4) Canvas: Once you are working with clips in the timeline they will show up in the Canvas window. The Canvas window has similar controls compared to the Viewer. You can use them to playback you final video.

(5) Tools Palette and Audio Meter: you can use the tools in the Tools Palette mainly for editing purposes (we will work with them later in the next workshop). The Audio Meter shows you the audio level of your recorded footage. You can adjust it manually if needed.

6. Digitize videos from your mini-DV playback device or HD flash memory camcorder. SD (for HD jump to the bottom of step 7): Make sure the mini-DV deck or camera is connected to your computer with a firewire cable (FCP will give you a warning message on startup if it cannot find the external playback device) or if you have an external miniDV playback device (like the ones in STEW B31) use this instead.

Then open the Log and Capture window:

File > Log and Capture…

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Use the controls to playback your video. You can use your keyboard keys “< (home)” and “(end) >” to cue the video frame by frame. Once you have reached the starting point from where you would like to digitize press the “i” key on your keyboard or set an in point by clicking (1).

Now cue the video to the outpoint, where you would like to stop recording:

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Set an out point by clicking (2) or press the “o” key on your keyboard. Now you need to “log” the clip, i.e. add it to a list of clips with their corresponding in and out points that the computer should remember.

Press Log Clip (3) in the Log and Capture window and give the clip a descriptive name. This will later on be the clips file name after it has been digitized

You can repeat these steps (cueing, setting in point – cueing setting out point – logging clip) for as many clips as you would like to digitize.

7. Capture the logged clips with Batch Capture: after you have logged all the clips you would like to digitize, press the Batch button (4) in the Log and Capture window. You should get a window like the one on the following page.

Make sure to check: Capture: All Items in Logging Bin if you do not have any other already digitized clips in your Browser. Or check: Capture: Selected Items in Logging Bin if you have already digitized some clips and would like to add the logged clips to them.

Double-check the Capture Preset, it should be set to “DV NTSC 48kHz”

The bottom of the Batch Capture window gives you an estimate of how much space the digitized files will take up on your hard drive and how this amount of data translates to the actual time of video recorded.

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Once you press “OK” the computer takes over and automatically cues the tape to the relevant positions and digitizes your clip(s).

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HD: Connect your camera with a USB cable to the computer. Turn the camera on. Open the Log and Transfer window

File > Log and Transfer…

You will see all the clips that have been recorded on your flash drive in the box on the top left side of your window. You can select multiple clips by holding down the command key while clicking. Once you selected all the clips click on the “Add selection to queue” button. Log and Transfer should start automatically – you can see a progress bar on top of the lower left box in the Log and Transfer window:

If Log and Transfer does not start automatically you have to press the pause/play button next to the progress bar.

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In this process of Log and Transfer, the clips recorded on the video camera’s flash memory are being encoded with the Apple Intermediate codec and transferred into the Capture Scratch folder in your Scratch Disk location.

8. After the computer has digitized your materials you should see them in your Browser window. Double-clicking on one of these clips will open it in the Viewer so that you can take a look at it.

Important: all the digitized clips have been saved automatically to the Capture Scratch folder in your original folder that you created at the beginning of this workshop. You will find another folder with the project’s name in the Capture Scratch folder and in there you will see all your digitized clips as Quicktime movies with the names you gave them when logging them. Final Cut Pro does not import these Quicktime files into your project but just links to them. This means that the relative path between these Quicktime files and the project file has to stay the same, otherwise FCP cannot locate the media files anymore. Working out of one folder that stores all the files should prevent his from happening.

9. The first step toward editing is to drag the clip from the Viewer into the Timeline. The clip will appear in the Canvas window and you are ready for your first edit. This will be the topic of workshop 02…